


Since the day I met you, I have become steadily more depraved

by middlemarch



Category: A Discovery of Witches (TV), All Souls Trilogy - Deborah Harkness
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Humor, Miriam is a complex badass, Secrets, Vampires, Vignette, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-09-26 16:41:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20392846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: Miriam had lived such a long time. She'd learned to guard her secrets and her pleasures carefully.





	Since the day I met you, I have become steadily more depraved

Miriam had a secret. More properly, Miriam had a thousand secrets, ones that she’d drunk down when she fed on warm-bloods and ones that were hers alone. She dreamt of Bertrand every night but not always his face; she remembered his hands better and the breadth of his shoulders. She reprogrammed all the computers herself for security purposes but she didn’t tell Matthew about the server she set up in Zarautz. She and Ysabeau had once made a bet about Matthew’s queue in the mid-1700s that she’d never collected on. She thought Ashmole 782 was likely to yield little helpful information and she wished for a long vacation somewhere cool and remote. But the secret she kept closest, that she had not even whispered to a running river so the sea could swallow it, the one she would never tell was readily apparent when she arrived in Madison. Not to Matthew, who’d known her longest, or Em, who had a scrying bowl. It was the animate Bishop house which knew. She was alone in the sitting room, facing the window when the book flew down the chimney and into her lap. There was not a trace of soot on it and it opened easily, fat with an unbroken spine, promising hours of pleasure.

“House found what you wanted? It has a way of doing that,” Em commented from the doorway, glancing at the book’s cover. “You finish that, there’s a whole collection on the shelf next to the mantle. Diana had Regency phase, I think every Georgette Heyer is there.”

Miriam was silent. What was there to say?

“There’s a spell I can cast, a glamour to hide the cover, make it read like upper level physics, if you want,” Em offered. “But honestly, I don’t think anyone’ll take any notice. Matthew and Diana only have eyes for each other, poor dears, Marcus can’t get over meeting Sarah and Sarah’s can’t get over having a house full of vampires. Your secret’s safe with me.”

“Thank you,” Miriam said. And then nothing else, no matter what Em might have expected. She thanked the witch and she was eager to find out what it would take for Lady Theresa to agree to the marriage of convenience. A whisper at the opera or some mention of Lord Bishmont’s country estate…

**Author's Note:**

> I thought the idea that leather-clad, tech-savvy Miriam would love Regency romance novels was frankly, adorable. I am a fan of the animate Bishop house and Em. Maybe Miriam and Diana end up bonding sometime over a discussion of _The Grand Sophy_? What do you think the bet was about Matthew's queue? 
> 
> Zarautz is one of the bigger cities in Basque Country, where Basque is the primary language. 
> 
> Lady Theresa and Lord Bishmont are a nod to fandom. Fandom, you have been nodded at!
> 
> Title is, of course, from Georgette Heyer.


End file.
